‘Call Of Duty: Black Ops’ Now Xbox One Backwards Compatible

Call of Duty: Black Ops was one of the first backwards compatible titles teased for the Xbox One when support was first revealed last year. Fans of the franchise can finally breathe a sigh of relief as Treyarch’s shooter was officially released for the current-gen console.

The Xbox Store currently has Call of Duty: Black Ops available for only $9.99, for those that don’t already own a digital copy of the shooter. Those that still have the disk version of the game will simply need to slip it into their Xbox One to begin playing.

The four add-on packs for Black Ops:First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation, and Rezurrection – are still full price at $14.99 each. Unfortunately, a Season Pass option is not available to purchase for the game any longer. The best fans can hope for is Activision putting the packs on sale or re-releasing the Season Pass at this point.

For the unfamiliar, Call of Duty: Black Ops is set during the 1960s Cold War era and moves players back and forth between different characters during the single-player campaign. This allows the game to take the player to different spots in the USSR, Cuba, Hong Kong, Laos, South Vietnam, the Arctic circles, and Siberia in an effort to stop an experimental weapon codenamed “Nova-6.”

The game’s multiplayer also works with Xbox One backwards compatibility and fully supports all map packs. Players on the current-gen console can play with those on the Xbox 360 as well.

Black Ops was one of the first major experimentations with different customization options via “Create-a-Class 2.0.” It seems standard now, but players were able to fully customize their character’s appearance, weapons, and perks. This includes custom emblems and reticles.

This is also when Zombies truly broke out as its own separate game mode for the Call of Duty franchise. The survival co-op mode was originally introduced in World at War, but the concept was expanded for Black Ops and even given a presidential twist. Players could take on the role John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro to fight zombies in the Pentagon-based map, “Five.” This also continued the Zombies story of Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Takeo Masaki, and Nikolai Belinski from the second World at War map add-on pack.

As the Inquisitrpreviously covered, Xbox One manages backwards compatibility by emulating the entire Xbox 360 operating system. This allows Xbox 360 games to run on the Xbox One without any special coding or other workarounds. The major hurdles remaining are the licensing agreements with development studios and publishers to allow the games to be played on the Xbox One and listed for sale on the Xbox Store for the console.

Following that, testing to make sure the game runs correctly on the Xbox One appears to be a time-consuming task. Microsoft has to test each game from beginning to end to ensure the emulator runs the title correctly. This can take hundreds of hours depending on the title.

It remains to be seen if Call of Duty: Black Ops II or any other titles from the franchise will be made backwards compatible. The original Modern Warfare is being completely remade for current-gen hardware and is being packed in with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. It will be interesting to see how Activision balances the demands of its yearly franchise with so much interest in backwards compatibility.

What do you think about Call of Duty: Black Ops becoming an Xbox One backwards compatible? Sound off in the comments below.